Computer gaming has become a highly lucrative industry. Computer games have evolved from simple text based games to multimedia immersive environments including sophisticated animated graphics, music and sound. To augment the interactivity and social networking aspects of gaming, the online environment has become an integral part of the gaming experience allowing gaming enthusiasts to participate in multiplayer games, download new games, add new features to existing games they own, etc.
The online environment has also created new opportunities for gamers to engage in cheating. Cheating refers to any activity of a user such as software augmentation to gain unfair advantages over other players. In certain environments, such as multiplayer gaming, online cheating may become more important than offline cheating.
Cheating can take various different forms. The simplest includes modifying local data files, to obtain different specs for in-game assets (e.g. a much faster car) or to modify the in-game environment, to alter game achievements, to change the contents of or to load the saved games of other players. It can also take a physical form. On the Web are several specifications for creation and modification of a controller to enable faster than human actions, such as rapid fire.
These cheats can take the form of a simple software addition such as a filter driver or add-ons available for popular online multiplayer games. These may vary from, for example, heads-up displays, auto-mapping and guiding tools, auto-targeting, auto-spell casting, extensive macro capabilities, and creation of bots, which can run as automatons with the absence of direct user input. For example, in a game with walls, a user might find a “cheat” to make walls invisible or generate auto-targeting.
Cheating may also refer to a user's illicit garnering of achievements or awards in a game. Achievements may be accolades provided during game play and represent a badge of honor in game play. Achievements may be obtained offline or online and thus the cheating may occur in either mode. However, often achievements are reported online.
A user may engage in online cheating by, for example, augmenting or modifying an executable or data files on their system. Cheating not only refers to simple modifications to the input stack to enable rapid fire and changes to a race car, for example, but can also include complex add-ons seen for multiuser games including heads-up displays (“HUDs”), auto targeting, bots, etc.
Software cheating represents a significant economic threat to the viability of gaming software development. When online cheating runs rampant it stifles interest of users in gaming and thus negatively impacts both game sales as well as online subscription sales.